All Expired Jobs

Since the 19th century, about 70-80% of all jobs in the industrial world were in agriculture.

Most people were farmers.

In 1870, more than half of all men had servants or worked on farms.

Today less than 1% of the US population works in agriculture.

Innovation and technology made farming successful, so people moved on to factory jobs and ended up working in white-collar offices.

There are many jobs over the years that have been outsourced by technology.

Telephone switchboard operators.

There used to be people who lit all the gas lamps in the street by hand. They were replaced by electricity.

Before alarm clocks, people called knocker-ups used to go around knocking on windows to wake people up.

Ice cutters and ice movers were replaced by the refrigerator.

Milk delivery too.

Before computers existed, NASA used human computers to do math by hand.

Elevator operators are no longer needed.

Clerks and file clerks are being replaced by word processors and computers.

It was someone’s job to set the bowling pins by hand.

Blacksmiths, wagon drivers and hard hands were replaced when automobiles replaced horses as the primary form of transportation. Now we needed auto mechanics and taxi drivers.

Assembly line workers were replaced by robots and cheap labor in developing countries. Many travel agents went out of business when travel booking sites came online. Tollbooth collectors have been replaced by machines or automatic tolls.

There were once video store clerks who were forced to put back videos you forgot to put back (and charge you for their trouble).

I could go on.

All these layoffs and more have happened but the unemployment rate for the last 80 years or so has been less than 6%:

The economy changed. The staff has changed. Jobs have changed. And things continued to grow.

I am not trying to minimize the disruption caused by this technological development. There was a drastic change as farmers moved from rural farming to urban factory work. Many Rust Belt manufacturing cities closed as work was moved overseas to cheaper labor.

There will certainly be a drastic change for many white-collar roles as AI is integrated into the workflow. I’m sure there are jobs out there that will be affected by AI that we can’t even imagine right now.

But new roles will also be created. AI will make many people better in their current roles. That will lead to more opportunities.

For many employers and businesses, AI will lead to more customers. Lawyers will be able to file multiple cases. Tax accountants will be able to add additional taxes. Financial advisors will be able to handle multiple clients. When the bottlenecks are removed, the output increases.

In a recent podcast, Marc Andreessen discussed the fact that tasks in your workplace change over time but tasks can continue with those changes.

He uses the historical example of an officer who used to have a secretary to write memos, messages and so on. Now, managers write their messages and send them by email. This is very successful but the secretary still has work to do. They are simply doing new jobs. That’s what he thinks AI will do for most workers.

Jobs themselves are not necessarily solutions to problems. Many businesses are created to solve a problem. People will still be required to do so.

One of the biggest unintended consequences of the pandemic was the explosion of business applications:

I think AI can send this trend into hyperdrive. The tools available will make it easier than ever to learn/build/code/grow a business faster than ever.

There are a lot of questions and no clear answers yet when it comes to AI. Some functions may be removed. New jobs will be created. Employees who know how to use AI effectively will be better in their current roles. People who don’t will likely be left behind or forced to adapt.

I don’t know what will happen but I am not in the camp of utopia (perfect abundance, no one has to work) or dystopia (everyone is unemployed and broke). I’m somewhere in between.

What I do know is that people are resilient, economies are changing and there will be amazing results from this new technology, just like all that came before it.

Michael and I talked about the potential impact of AI in this week’s Animal Spirits video:

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Further reading:
Advantages and Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence

Now here’s what I’ve been reading lately:

Books: